1. Field of the Invention
The present application relates to software applications and their environments and more specifically to reduced environments for applications.
2. Related Art
Currently, applications require specific environments in which to execute. For example, applications are usually constructed with a specific operating system environment in mind, and migrating to a different operating system environment requires a different version of the application. In addition to operating system environments, there are also specific hardware requirements associated with applications. At the base level, an application compiled for use on a specific instruction set architecture (ISA) will be unable to execute on a machine with a different ISA.
Commonly used routines are frequently encapsulated in libraries configured to be accessed by applications. These libraries are generally shared among many different applications, allowing the software developer to leverage common functionality and reduce the application's file size. This approach is advantageous when a number of different applications make use of the same commonly used routines. The libraries that an application uses, but are not included with the distribution of the application, need to be present in the application's executing environment to execute the application as intended.
It is common practice to provide a wide variety of libraries and/or individual helper routines in an operating environment in order to support a wide variety of applications. Together these supporting elements comprise a general runtime environment that provides software services for processes or programs while a computer is running. The general runtime environment may further include an operating system, an associated kernel, and software that runs beneath the operating system, such as hardware and/or device drivers.
A general runtime environment may include many components that are not required by those applications that are actually executed. This may be a disadvantage in circumstances that include limits on available memory or other resources consumed by the unused components, or when the extra components conflict with each other.